This Jerry Lewis interview was posted two or three years ago, but his recollections about the beginnings of his friendship and then partnership with Dean Martin are really great. You have to know the act and the history and the whole legend of Skinny D’Amato.

How many world-class male directors (domestic or foreign) are known for appearing to understand and get under the skins of strong female characters, and have shown more than once how masterful they are at telling women-friendly dramas? I’ve noted before that this description fits Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu…but who else? With this grim but curiously compelling drama of obsession and exorcism opening on March 8th, it’s worth re-posting a four-month-old riff:

Beyond The Hills director Cristian Mungiu at Bouchon — Sunday, 11.4, 10:07 pm.

“A thought hit me during Sunday night’s dinner at Bouchon for Beyond The Hills and Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days director Cristian Mungiu that he could be in the Terrence Malick business if he wanted it. His rep as a woman-friendly, deep-focus, introspective helmer is such he could make indie-fashioned pics in this country with any in-demand actress in the business.

“They’d all work with him at the drop of a hat, Meryl Streep on down, because he’s a celebrated, Bresson-like perfectionist.

“I asked Mungiu about this and he said that he’s heard from more than a few American actresses, all saying they’d love to work with him. But he really is a Bressonian in that he prefers (or has so far preferred) to work with non-actresses. He also says there’s something about the aura of an established or famous actress that might impose itself upon his process…maybe. But he’s open to the right thing if it seems right, he said, so no doors are firmly closed.

“He said he recently got an email from director William Friedkin about wanting to meet, partly because they’ve both shot films about exorcisms. But he’s leaving Los Angeles tomorrow with no plans to return anytime soon.”

Mungiu, dp Svetlana Cvetko — Sunday, 11.4, 10:10 pm.

And this from five and half years ago:

“Calm, confident and obviously whip-smart, Mungiu speaks with a vast English vocabulary and a very faint accent. He’s a believer in pared-down, less-is-more realism, and he knows how to explain his cinematic aesthetic in a very clean and concise way. He listens carefully and knows his stuff. I could talk to Mungiu for days. The same ‘instant comfort’ thing happens whenever I meet a good director from any culture.”

Reports started to circulate a couple of weeks ago about Harrison Ford returning as Han Solo in JJ Abrams‘ Star Wars VII. My understanding is that this is not idle conjecture and will probably happen but you know Ford — renowned for being a tough negotiator, has to get his price and then some. Naturally the Disney guys are telling everyone to keep their yaps shut.

If I were Ford, who turns 71 on July 13th, I would want to completely eliminate the possibility of anyone claiming he’ll be playing Grandpappy Solo. 70 is the new 60 or even the new 55 if you eat right and take care of yourself, but Ford really has to buff up for this. He has to at least be the guy he was in Cowboy and Aliens — graying but tough and snarly, rugged and sinewy and semi-leather-faced and still able to dodge asteroids. If I were he I would labor mightily through some punishing health and workout routine (and perhaps with some kind of mild cosmetic touch-up, like getting rid of the fucking turkey neck) to pass myself off as a rugged 50something, perhaps even the way Ford looked in in ’08 in that now-completely-discredited Indiana Jones flick.

The fans will want a return of classic Han Solo and the old Millenium Falcon. They’ll want to go right the hell back to 1980, or as much as possible in that direction. They’ll want one last final smirking strut of the once-rascally freelancer in all his Greedo-shooting glory, casually cruising the cosmos in his retro-fitted bucket of bolts. That means not, emphatically not doing any kind of getting-older, slowing-down, “Oh, my aching back” retirement-home version. Don’t even think about that. We’re talking a performance in the vein of Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again.

I had a nice 20-minute chat this morning with actress Valerie Perrine, who’s best known for her Oscar-nominated performance as Honey Bruce in Bob Fosse‘s Lenny (’74). (And for which she won Best Actress at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival and Best Supporting Actress from the New York Film Critics Circle.) As I mentioned yesterday, Perrine will be doing a q & a with Larry Karaszewski between screenings of Lenny and George Roy Hill‘s Slaughterhouse Five on Thursday, 10.7, at Santa Monica’s Aero.

Perrine started in show business as a Las Vegas topless revue dancer, which she did for several years. She didn’t land her first screen role in Diamonds Are Forever, she says — that’s an IMDB error. She was around 28 when she lucked into the supporting role of Montana Wildhack in Slaughterhouse Five (which came out in June 1972). She then made history as the first actress to do a boob-baring scene on American televison during a May 1973 PBS airing of Bruce Jay Friedman‘s Steambath. And then came Lenny — her career peak.

She costarred in the first two Chris Reeve Superman films, of course, playing Lex Luthor’s (i.e., Gene Hackman‘s) girlfriend, Eve Teschmacher. She reached the end of her lucky streak at age 36 or thereabouts after costarring in Nancy Walker‘s Can’t Stop the Music (’80), which Perrine believes pretty much killed her career or at least kept her from being cast in first-rate films.

Perrine costarred in Tony Richardson‘s The Border (’82), although, she says, she had signed for that film before Can’t Stop the Music. And from then on acted in whatever came along — TV, indie movies. Never say die, keep on plugging, tomorrow’s another day. Perrine’s last mainstream score was a costarring role in Nancy Meyers‘ What Women Want (’00).

Perrine isn’t given to expansive answers but that’s cool. She’s a bit like Jennifer Lawrence in that she’s not into arduous preparation for a part — she just likes to walk on set and keep things as spontaneous as possible. She didn’t have a huge amount to say about working with with Fosse on Lenny or about Lamont Johnson‘s Last American Hero (’75), an excelllent film in which she also co-starred. But she told a pretty good tale about getting the attention of Slaughterhouse Five casting agent Marion Dougherty.

She mentioned that her health isn’t in the greatest condition these days but that it might be just a temporary setback (let’s hope). Really nice lady, good to touch base.

Remember when Pixar used to mean “pick of the litter” or “exception to the rule”? To me animated family-trade movies are a form of Orwellian horror. The oppressive sameness, the regimented “up” attitude, and the skin-deep humor perfectly express the bloodless corporate mentality behind them. These movies are cash cows, but the trick is to avoid making a parent-punisher. Monsters University (Disney, 6.21) looks like a parental torture device.

About a year ago 20th Century Fox’s UK video arm issued a superbly mastered Bluray of Joseph L. Mankiwewicz‘s Cleopatra. They called it a 50th anniversary edition when in fact it celebrated the film’s 49th year, as it opened on 6.12.63. I said in my 2.5.12 review that “if you can somehow make yourself ignore the elephantine, glacially-paced, dialogue-driven nature and just focus on the lavish Todd-AO splendor and large-format clarity, it’s a nice high-def bath.”

And now Fox Home Video is announcing that their version (i.e., the exact same Bluray with exact same extras) is coming out on 5.21.13 with a different cover.

What am I missing? Except for Amoeba and Best Buy and Walmart and other big chains retail purchasings of Blurays are no more. If you want to buy a Bluray you order it online, period. Which is what I did when the British version came out. What’s different when it comes to ordering the U.S. version? The British Bluray is slightly cheaper, going for about $12 U.S. while the limited U.S. book version is selling for about $18 bills and the domestic limited two-disc Bluray is $13.

The original roadshow version of Cleopatra (i.e., the version on both Blurays) runs 243 minutes but it’s actually 251 minutes with overture, entr’acte and exit music. The full-boat 243-minute version is the only way to suffer through this thing.

I shouldn’t have used the word “nice” in my initial review — that makes it sound just okay. The British Bluray is visually magnificent, sumptuous. It’s a long, highly colorful, super-detailed chocolate sundae. I wrote last year that “I can watch stodgy big-studio films if they were shot by seasoned pros (i.e., Leon Shamroy) on expensive large-format stock. I have that skill, that knack. I shut my mind off and meditate on the resolution and the tonalities and push the other stuff aside.”

Cleopatra is essentially a three-character piece (Elizabeth Taylor‘s Cleopatra, Rex Harrison‘s Julius Caesar, and Richard Burton‘s Marc Antony). The big poster was originally painted with just Taylor and Burton. This prompted Harrison to complain and insist that he be included, and so the poster was altered [see below]. Now the jacket cover of the U.S. Bluray has eliminated Harrison again.

In his 2.26.12 review, Bluray.com’s Dr. Svet Atanasov called Cleopatra‘s high-definition transfer “enormously impressive. Detail, clarity, and especially image depth easily rival those of the outstanding Bluray release of William Wyler‘s Ben-Hur, which Warner Brothers produced last year. The massive panoramic scenes also look incredibly fluid. If you have the ability to project your Blurays on large screens, prepare to be overwhelmed by the stunning visuals.

“There are absolutely no traces of problematic de-noising or sharpening corrections. Unsurprisingly, when blown through a digital projector Cleopatra very much looks like film, boasting organic qualities that are typically extremely easy to appreciate if an older film has undergone a meticulous restoration and lab technicians have not tried to ‘modernize’ it.”

On 4.11.10 I wrote the following: “The rap against Cleopatra is that it’s stately, slow-moving, oppressively talky, etc. But the opening credits — black font, a series of faded wall paintings, Alex North‘s music — are arresting, and then fascinating during a 20-second passage. North’s score slips into a somber mood and then builds into slight fanfare as the final painting becomes more and more vivid in stages, and finally transitions into 70mm live action.

“There’s a portion of ten or twelve minutes after the credits with Rex Harrison and Martin Landau and the rest that’s fairly efficient, and then — about 16 or 17 minutes in — Elizabeth Taylor arrives, and the film soon becomes draggy, and then tedious, and then suffocating.”

The first rule of acting in a comedy is that you don’t laugh at what anyone else says or does. Ever. Straight and sober from start to finish. But look closely at the face of Peter Bull (the “Russian Ambassador” in the black hat, standing to Peter Sellers‘ rear right) at the 17-second mark, and you’ll see him lose it and start chuckling…and then he sobers up again. This is almost the kind of thing that you see in closing-credit gag reels.

Bob Fosse‘s Lenny used to be one of my favorite ’70s films, and watching this clip just now suggests that it still might be. I haven’t seen it in eons. It’s not on Bluray and the DVD goes back a long while and is hard to find. But Lenny is playing next Thursday, 3.7, at the Aero as part of a Valerie Perrine double-bill with Slaughterhouse Five. Perrine (I’m chatting with her tomorrow) will do a q & a with Larry Karaszewski.

If Dustin Hoffman is around he should fall by. I’d love to hear the stories. How many more times will Lenny screen in front of a hip audience inside a nice theatre with first-rate projection and sound?

I’m just recalling Pauline Kael’s assessment of Hoffman’s performance as Lenny Bruce, and her belief that Hofffman had labored perhaps too mightily to be loved by the audience and that the real-deal Bruce — a caustic, snappy, contentious guy who talked fast and free-associated like jazz — never seemed to care that much about affection. He wanted attention, respect. Plus he was a little snarlier than Hoffman. Hoffman “is so nonthreatening,” Kael wrote. “His putziness is just what Bruce despised…Bruce was uncompromisingly not nice.”

Hoffman basically fed his own manner and personality into Bruce’s life and some kind of hybrid emerged. Intense, angry, a likable smoothie at times, fevered, occasionally impish, frustrated, despairing. But you can’t watch Lenny, I don’t think, with any expectation of seeing a close facsimile or re-boot of the real guy.

Henry Alex Rubin‘s Disconnect (4.19) “tells three mostly separate stories concerned with the impact of the internet on its characters’ lives with the focus on (a) a young boy (Jonah Bobo‘s Ben) who becomes the victim of cyberbullying, (b) a couple (Alexander Skarsgard‘s Derek and Paula Patton‘s Cindy) whose identity is stolen, and (c) a twentysomething (Max Thieriot‘s Kyle) who makes his living taking his clothes off online.

“Rubin, working from a script by Andrew Stern, has infused Disconnect with an inherently engrossing feel that proves instrumental in the movie’s success, with the impressive list of performers — Jason Bateman, Hope Davis and Andrea Riseborough among others — merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of the film’s many, many pleasures. The almost disorienting atmosphere of the outset, perpetuated by the separate storylines and Rubin’s patience in allowing things to unfold, gives way to a palpably spellbinding feel that persists virtually without interruption right through to the emotionally devastating conclusion.” — David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews.

An example of a Jedi mind trick is the one used by Alec Guiness‘s Obi Wan Kenobi in Act One of Star Wars: “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” But as Washington Post/”In The Loop” columnist Emily Heil has pointed out, “Mind meld is a phenomenon from Star Trek…a method of communication used among Vulcans, like Spock.”

President Obama‘s “mash-up of the two is certain to provoke outcry among the fervent fans of each franchise. And no matter what happens in Washington, the president might find that bringing together Trekkies and Star Wars aficionados might be tougher than brokering a bipartisan compromise.”

Star Trek Into Darkness director JJ Abrams reads this column, I know. Does he have anything to add? Are we (Obama, Heil, myself) missing anything?

I’ve been dumping on Terrence Malick‘s To The Wonder (Magnolia, 4.12) since catching it at last September’s Toronto Film Festival, but I want to emphasize something important. The trick is to see this thing without expecting it to act like a movie. Because it works if you submit to it like you would an art gallery experience. It’s passive and reflective like the sea on a windless day, but in a Moby-Dick sort of way: “The sea where each man, as in a mirror, finds himself.”

“Malick gives you so little to grapple with (at least in terms of a fleshed-out narrative and that thing we’ve all encountered from time to time called ‘speech’ or ‘talking’ or whatever form of oral communication you prefer) that” — like staring at paintings or sculptures in a museum — “it’s pretty much your responsibility to make something out of To The Wonder‘s 112 minutes,” I wrote on 9.11.12.

“It’s all about you taking a journey of your own devising in the same way we all take short little trips with this or that object d’art, whereever we might happen to find one. The film is mesmerizing to look at but mostly it just lies there. Well, no, it doesn’t ‘lie there’ but it just kind of swirls around and flakes out on its own dime. Run with it or don’t (and 97% of the people out there aren’t going to even watch this thing, much less take the journey) but ‘it’s up to you,’ as the Moody Blues once sang.

“To The Wonder doesn’t precisely fart in your face. It leads you rather to wonder what the air might be like if you’ve just cut one in a shopping mall and there’s someone right behind you, downwind. That’s obviously a gross and infantile thing to think about, but To The Wonder frees you to go into such realms if you want. It’s your deal, man. Be an adult or a child or a 12 year-old or a buffalo. Or a mosquito buzzing around a buffalo. Naah, that’s dull. Be a buffalo and sniff the air as Rachel McAdams walks by! You can go anywhere, be anything. Which is liberating in a sense, but if you can’t or won’t take the trip you’ll just get up and leave or take a nap or throw something at the screen. Or get up and leave and head for the nearest mall.

“I went with it. I wasn’t bored. Well, at least not for the first hour. I knew what I’d be getting into and I basically roamed around in my head as I was led and lulled along by Emmanuel Lubezki‘s images and as I contemplated the narcotized blankness coming out of Ben Affleck‘s ‘Neil’ character, who is more or less based on Malick. Or would be based on Malick if Malick had the balls to make a film about himself, which he doesn’t. If Malick had faced himself and made a film about his own solitude and obstinacy and persistence…wow! That would have been something.

“But Malick is a hider, a coward, a wuss. He used to be the guy who was up to something mystical and probing and mysterious. Now he tosses lettuce leaves in the air and leaves you to put them all into a bowl as you chop the celery and the carrots and the tomatoes and decide upon the dressing.

To The Wonder “is a wispy, ethereal thing composed of flaky intimations and whispers and Lubezki’s wondrous cinematography with maybe 20 or 25 lines of dialogue, if that. It’s basically The Tree of Life 2: Oklahoma Depression. It’s Malick sitting next to you and gently whispering in your ear, ‘You wanna leave? Go ahead. Go on, it’s okay, I don’t care…do what you want. But you can also stay.'”